Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Children, Schools and Families – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 8 March 2010.
James Gray
Conservative, North Wiltshire
2:30,
8 March 2010
The Secretary of State is wittering from the Dispatch Box.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
If you've ever seen inside the Commons, you'll notice a large table in the middle - upon this table is a box, known as the dispatch box. When members of the Cabinet or Shadow Cabinet address the house, they speak from the dispatch box. There is a dispatch box for the government and for the opposition. Ministers and Shadow Ministers speak to the house from these boxes.
